Tamara Thornton CV
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1 TAMARA PLAKINS THORNTON Department of History Park Hall 568 State University of New York, Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 716-645-8419 [email protected] EDUCATION YALE UNIVERSITY, Department of American Studies, M.A., 1982, M. Phil., 1983, Ph.D., 1987. HARVARD UNIVERSITY, A.B., 1978, Magna cum laude, History of Science. ACADEMIC POSITIONS STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, BUFFALO, Department of History. Professor, 2000- (Chair, 2003-6); Associate Professor, 1995-2000; Assistant Professor, 1992-95. STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, COLLEGE AT FREDONIA, Department of History. Assistant Professor, 1989-1992. BOOKS Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016; paperback edition, 2021). Awarded the 2017 John Lyman Book Award by the North American Society for Oceanic History and the 2017 Peter Gomes Memorial Book Award by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Finalist for the 2017 New England Society Book Award by the New England Society in the City of New York. Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996; paperback edition, 1998). Cultivating Gentlemen: The Meaning of Country Life among the Boston Elite, 1785-1860 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). FELLOWSHIPS American Antiquarian Society-National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship, 2020-21. Newberry Library-National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellowship, 2020-21 (declined). Huntington Library, Andrew W. Mellon Short-Term Fellowship, 2020-21 (postponed). American Antiquarian Society, Jay T. and Deborah Last Short-Term Fellowship, 2020-21 (declined). SUNY, Buffalo, Humanities Institute, Fellowship, 2020-21, 2012-13. Massachusetts Historical Society, Andrew W. Mellon Short-Term Fellowship, 2000-01. National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship, 1993-94. Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, Dissertation fellowship, 1985-86. Idlewild Foundation, Fellowship for study at the Attingham Trust (England), 1983. 2 PRIZES Exceptional Scholar—Sustained Achievement Award, SUNY, Buffalo, 2020 Peter Gomes Memorial Book Award, Massachusetts Historical Society, 2017. In recognition of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016). John Lyman Book Award, North American Society for Oceanic History, 2017. In recognition of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016). Finalist, New England Society Book Award by the New England Society in the City of New York, 2016. In recognition of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed American Life (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016). Ralph D. Gray Article Prize, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2008. In recognition of “A ‘Great Machine’ or a ‘Beast of Prey’: A Boston Corporation and Its Rural Debtors in an Age of Capitalist Transformation,” Journal of the Early Republic 27 (Winter 2007). Milton Plesur Excellence in Teaching Award, 2001 University-wide award given by the Student Association, State University of New York, Buffalo. Young Scholar Prize, State University of New York, College at Fredonia, 1990. Leonard J. Siff Prize, Best Undergraduate Thesis, Dept. of the History of Science, Harvard University, 1978. ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS “Mathematical Geography, the “Use of the Globes,” and Race Theory in Early America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d. ser., 77 (Apr. 2020): 273-310. “Capitalist Aesthetics: Americans Look at the London and Liverpool Docks,” in Capitalism Takes Command: The Social Transformation of Nineteenth-Century America, Michael Zakim and Gary Kornblith, eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 169-98. “A ‘Great Machine’ or a ‘Beast of Prey’: A Boston Corporation and Its Rural Debtors in an Age of Capitalist Transformation,” Journal of the Early Republic 27 (Winter 2007): 567-97. Awarded the Ralph D. Gray Article Prize by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. “Handwriting in an Age of Industrial Print,” in A History of the Book in America, vol. 3, The Industrial Book, 1840-1880, Scott E. Casper et al, eds. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), pp. 400-406. “Relics in the Sacred Cause of Liberty: the 1877 Bowditch Memorial Cabinet,” Proceedings of the 2004 Dublin Seminar for the Study of New England Folklife (Boston: Boston University Scholarly Publications, 2006). “‘The Intelligent Mariner’: Nathaniel Bowditch, The Science of Navigation, and the Art of Upward Mobility in the Maritime World,” New England Quarterly 79 (Dec. 2006): 609-35. “Gentleman Farmers” and “Massachusetts Horticultural Society” in The Encyclopedia of New England: The Culture and History of an American Region, Burt Feintuch and David H. Watters, eds., (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 42-48-49. "Deviance, Dominance, and the Construction of Handedness in Turn-of-the-Century Anglo-America," in Moral Problems in American Life, Karen Halttunen and Lewis Perry, eds., (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). "Horticulture and American Character," in Keeping Eden: A History of Gardening in America, Walter Punch, ed., (Boston: Little, Brown, Bulfinch Press, 1992). "Between Generations: Boston Agricultural Reform and the Aging of New England, 1815-1830," New England Quarterly 59 (June 1986): 189-211. "The Moral Dimensions of Horticulture in Antebellum America," New England Quarterly 57 (Mar. 1984): 3-2 3 CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS “The Non-Cartographic Uses and Implications of Globes in Early America,” “The Power of Maps and the Politics of Borders” conference, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, October 2019. Presenter, SHEAR Biography Seminar, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Cambridge, MA, July 2019. Panelist, “Roundtable: How NOT to Write Your Second Book,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Philadelphia, PA, July 2017. Panel Comment, “Costly Improvements: The Promise and Pitfalls of Early National Development,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, New Haven, CT, July 2016. “American History and the Numerical Turn; or, Digital History with Real Digits,” for Roundtable on “History, Numbers, Numeracy: Opportunities and Obstacles in Quantitative and Digital History,” Organization of American Historians, Providence, RI, April 2016. “Blank Forms and Interchangeable Parts: Mathematical Values and the Creation of Impersonal Bureaucracies in the Early American Republic,” Cornell Conference on the Histories of American Capitalism, Ithaca, NY, November 2014. “Blank Forms and Interchangeable Parts: Mathematical Values and the Creation of Impersonal Bureaucracies in the Early American Republic,” Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, St. Catharines, ON, May 2014. “Capitalist Aesthetics: Americans Look at the London and Liverpool Docks,” American Studies Association, Baltimore, October 2011. Panel Comment, “Transforming Visions: Literature and Architecture in the Age of Commercial Capitalism,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Philadelphia, July 2011. Panelist, Roundtable on Undergraduate Research at the SHEAR/Mellon Seminar, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Rochester, New York, July 2010. “Teaching the Early Republic,” Roundtable Panel on Teaching, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Springfield, Illinois, July 2009. “Nathaniel Bowditch (F.R.S.) and the Science of Business in Antebellum Boston,” Business History Conference, Minneapolis, May 2005. “‘Relics’ in the Sacred Cause of Liberty: the 1877 Bowditch Memorial Cabinet,” The Dublin Seminar for the Study of New England Folklife, Deerfield, Mass., June 2004. “Nathaniel Bowditch and the Clockwork Universe of Business,” Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Columbus, Ohio, July 2003. “’Simplicity, perspicuity, order, and system’: Nathaniel Bowditch and the Clockwork Universe of Business,” Bowditch Institute Conference, Salem State College, Salem, Mass., November 2002. Panel Comment, “Politics and the International Culture Industry in the 1840s,” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies, Newport, RI, November 1998. Panel Comment, "Literature and Discourse, 1790-1820," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Nashville, Tennessee, July 1996. "The Cultural Meaning of Graphology in Twentieth-Century America," Organization of American Historians, Washington, D.C, April 1995. "The Construction of Characters: Penmanship and Identity in the Early Republic," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Madison, Wisconsin, July 1991. "Golden Spoons and Iron Spoons: The Antebellum Boston Elite and the Yeomanry of New England," Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Philadelphia, July 1987. 4 INVITED SCHOLARLY LECTURES/PRESENTATIONS “The “Use of the Globes”: Mathematical Geography and Its Cognitive Impact on the Spatial, Social, and Economic Imagination in the Early Republic,” Columbia Seminar in Early America, October 2017. “The ‘Use of the Globes’: Mathematical Geography, the Mercantile Imagination, and Global Capitalism in Postrevolutionary America,” Seminar in the History of Capitalism,